I don't know if this is a common problem or not.I have seen some threads talk about Nero not showing the real write speed buy my problem I think is different.My burner is a PhillipsCDRW2412 and it's max write speed is 24x but Nero will only let me select 16x and doesn't even show the 24x option.If I uninstall and reinstall Nero it shows it at 24x until I load any kind of CDR in the drive.The Nero info tool also shows my max speed at 16x.It didn't use to do this on a older version but I don't remember which one.Anyway if anyone can help me with this problem I would greatly appreciate it.Im a newbie so if I asked a dumb question im truly sorry.If there is a better burning software im open to option suggestions.Again thanks for any help.

Nero allows the Recorder to determine Max and Min write speeds, based on the media it detects in the Recorder.

You could try upgrading the firmware on your recorder, to see if they have added support for this media in their new firmware.

You can also download our 'Dynamic Write Speed' utility that disables this feature to allow you to specify any write speed your recorder supports, regardless of what it detects the media should support. But if you use this, you may find that the media you burn at the Max write speed fails to play back in some or all devices. Even the Recorder that created it. So use carefully.

I'm not able to duplicate this issue. Are you using the latest firmware from Plextor? Are you using a Hack firmware? How is the drive connected to the system? Are you using a Promise IDE Controller? I've seen issues with these controllers before, though not of this nature.

I removed Plextools and KProbe thinking it could possibly conflict somehow, but I got the same results.... The [START] button is greyed out on the plextor for running anything. It's okay on my other ROM drive.

Looks like I spoke to soon in regards to the Plextor 716 and our CD-DVD Speed.

I'm now in Germany and our Engineers reported they could not duplicate this issue with the Plextor 716A and the 1.04 firmware. So I grabbed the drive and tested by self, and all is working. And yet the drive I have in our US office that I upgraded the firmware to 1.04 did show this issue.

Now we'll have to wait till I return to the US on March 20th to try and get to the bottom of this issue. I'm going to ask my contact at Plextor US to send me a couple more of these drives. One with the 1.04 firmware already flashed, and one that needs to be flashed.

Things are just getting stranger. I had the developer of Nero CD-DVD Speed use the same firmware upgrade from Plextor U.S that I used to duplicate this issue. But he still is unable to duplicate this. I then tested myself on a drive here in our Nero AG (Germany) lab, and it too does not show this issue.

So now we'll have to wait till I return to the U.S and get my hands on this one drive that does show this issue so I can try and see what the 'heck' is going on.

I'll keep you posted with my findings. I'll return to the U.S around March 21st.